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Topic: 1968 Rally Sport grille research (Read 199241 times)

Would you mind checking your 68 P&A (date) for me in 1.266 and see if the 67 center grille (3921841) is still listed separately from the 68 center grille (3919060) or if they have been listed as 67-68 w/ RS center .....3919060 at the point of your P&A printing. I'm curious about something and would appreciate your checking for me. Thanks!!

Since the upper and lower parts were the same for both years, the only difference would have been the center section, hence the part number difference between the 67 and 68 "Grille Assy". Just WHY they list the center section as being the same is probably because by the time my P&A was published (September, 1968), the 67 center section had been discontinued and they just used the 68 center section as a replacement. That happened a lot back then, so that's my theory.

Yes, the Left Hand covers are still separate part numbers (3898135 and 3919063), but what's really interesting, it shows the Right Hand cover (3919064) as being used on 67-69!! Boy, someone sure screwed up!!

Thats funny! It's also interesting as the right side was not substituted until 10/68 so they must have been anticipating the change over in the P&A 9/68 printing since it was so close. Either that or you have discovered that the engineers were going to use the 68 headlight cover on the 69 model year but.......

Probably just a typo because on the next page, the 69 (left and right) Outer Covers are shown as the correct P/N's, 3949599 and 3949600.

But another interesting item... I just picked up a September, 1968 X691A "Corvair and Camaro Preliminary Parts Catalog" for Canada (which is the exact same publish date as the P&A 34) that lists the "new" part numbers for the 1969 Corvair and Camaro. It shows Group 2.770 "Cover, Headlamp Retracting" as P/N's 3958004 and 3958003 for the 69 Outer Covers! Same publish date, different part numbers!! Just goes to show you how one hand wasn't paying attention to the other!!

OR... Did the Canadian 69 RS Camaro's come with different covers than US cars??? I can see something like that happening since their laws were different than the US. Maybe they didn't require the slots? JOHN?

I'd vote for typo. That seems very odd, to say the least, on the Canadian vs US 69 numbers for the HL covers. I originally asked the center grill question due partly to a post in the old form on the subject. It was regarding SS/RS black vs. chrome (horizontal) grilles on 68's. Rich answered the question but did not supply any dates. It looks like the 060 grille was the "part" for both the 67 & 68 by September of 68 and by what Rich provided it appears it was available in "black" only. The HL covers though were still apparently (as per your P&A for the LH anyway) available in chrome as my info has the 68 LH HL cover not being substituted for the 67 part until November 68 and the 68 RH HL cover not being substitued for the 67 part until October 68 (even though your P&A shows it to be used effective 9/68...but that is perhaps to be expected given it was being "substituted" in). I was trying to nail down the exact date when the center chrome grille part was no longer available. At this point it looks like it must have been available through the 68 production run and then a decision to, as the old post states, go with one part for the two years. I wonder if there is some documentation (ESL or something) somewhere on the center grille "black" only decision?

Steve

Edit: Ed, I pulled another source I have and I think I have an answer (sort of ) for the Canadian vs US issue. The Canadian #'s were substituted in November of 68 with the US #'s. So, it would seem the Canadian publication was just behind. But that begs the question, did GM/Chevy originally plan on using the 3958003 and 3958004 part for 69 originally? Steve

The 3919060 is the part number for the 68 (chrome) center section so I'm not sure why Rich would state that it was a "black only". It would make more sense that GM would discontinue the 68 center section and just use the 67 on both years (as it was a LOT less expensive to produce), but the parts book doesn't show that. It shows just the opposite. The 1971 price schedule I have shows the 3919060 still available, as does the 1976 schedule and the 1980 schedule. I'm assuming (and maybe incorrectly) that this part number continued to have the chrome applied, but perhaps at some point GM discontinued the chrome and just went with all black. Does anyone out there have an NOS 3919060 that they purchased in the 80's? We need to know what it looks like.

It seems odd to me too. It just so happens that I bought a new 3919060 from a Chev dealer (parts dept) in Northern VA on 1/25/72....it was black. Does the '71, '76, and '80 info you have indicate that the grille is chrome?

Okay, now I see... Rich stated that even though the part number was apparently the same (3919060), it's a GM Service Replacement part (correct 68 grille styling, but no chrome). So it does appear that the 3919060 was changed to a replacement part at the end of the 1968 model year. That's why the 9/68 P&A shows 1967 and 1968 as both using the 3919060. Boy, they didn't waste any time in getting rid of that chrome did they!!!

And no, the P&A 26 doesn't show any kind of description. It shows Part Number, Group Number, Model where used (Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, etc...), Warehouse Code (where you could order it from) and the 3 layers of pricing:

"Suggested list" - what we as a walk-in customer could buy it at, and of course, the most expensive"Suggested Trade" - what Resellers could buy it for, or, if you had a buddy in the parts department, what you could get it at if he liked you - middle of the road pricing"Dealer Trade" - What dealers sold to each other for - the least expenive.

These are really cool books if you like to cry over how much (or little) things cost back then! For example, in the 1971 P&A 26, the price for the 3919060 is $10.75 (List) or $6.45 (reseller and dealer)!

I wonder why they were so quick to replace the chrome center but yet let the 67 black HL covers (3898135 & 6) be "converted" over to the 68 covers (3919063 & 4....chrome pieces) in 11/68 and 10/68 respectively? I must be missing something cause it doesn't fit for me. Also, would they not have realized 68 owners/shops would have wanted (needed) chrome center replacement centers?

John can probably answer this better than I, but in my experience, GM's policy was (and has always been) as long as they had a suitable replacement that fit, that was good enough. I also believe that it was GM's policy to have "suitable replacements" available for around 10 years after the car had left production, but again, John can answer this better than I. Finally, it also depended on how many of a particular part they still had in stock.

As an example, the 67 Left Hand Door (3898135) was discontinued before 1971 so they probably didn't have a lot of these left in stock, and siince the 68 doors were a sutiable replacement, no need to manufacture more. (The 68 Left and Right Hand Doors - 3919063 and 3919064 - were still around after 1980.)

And something that a lot of people dont' realize is that they always kept "Left Hand" parts in stock longer than "Right Hand" parts because most accidents to automobiles occure to the left side of the car.

As for the 68 Grille, the entire 68 Grille Assembly (3929281) was still available into the late 70's (dscontinued in November, 1979), but again, I have no idea if that one was the chrome one or just the correct style but black. The 67 Grille Assembly (3905745) didn't even make it to 1971.

Many parts listed by Service were "functional replacements" or "functional equivalents" which would service the application adequately, but were not the same in appearance as the original production part; conversely, many Service parts were the original production parts, but carried a different part number in the parts book because they came in a box with an instruction sheet and/or attaching parts, thus requiring a different part number for the "unit" that was comprised of several parts. You have to know what you're looking for and understand that the Service part isn't necessarily the same as the production part.